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Man pleads guilty to fentanyl possession

Sober celebration is in order for a 25-year-old Kingston man. For one thing, thanks to a kindly judge he’s not looking at any additional time in Quinte Detention Centre. More importantly, and no thanks to his dealer, he’s not dead.

Even Hunter L. Korenstein’s lawyer, Lawrence Silver, remarked on how close to oblivian his client’s drug use took him.

But what was more chilling for federal Crown prosecutor Courtney Cottle was how close to the same end Korenstein’s irresponsible choice in shooting galleries could have brought some unsuspecting member of the public.

Korenstein pleaded guilty in Kingston’s Ontario Court of Justice to illegally possessing fentanyl last October and three months later violating a curfew attached to a bail release he’d been granted.

Justice Stephen A.J. Marsh gave him enhanced credit on 60 days already spent in pretrial custody — counting the time as equivalent to 90 days — and sentenced Korenstein to time served and 18 months of probation.

Cottle had urged a sentence that would have left him with an additional 30 days to serve but was opposed by defence lawyer Silver, who argued that — notwithstanding his client’s substance abuse problem — Korenstein has no prior convictions under the Controlled Drugs and Substance Act.

Cottle told the judge that Korenstein was initially charged on Oct. 22 after Kingston Police responded to a Sunday afternoon call from the 414 Princess St. Pizza Pizza in The Hub.

Officers found Korenstein unconscious, overdosed on the floor in the pizzeria’s bathroom, his drug paraphernalia around him, a trickle of blood running down his arm and a bag of dirty needles nearby.

Cottle said he also had a container of what police believed to be marijuana and two baggies of the substance he’d just injected. One of bags had spilled its contents. The other still contained 0.3 grams of the drug, which Korenstein, once revived, identified as heroin.

But it wasn’t heroin, the judge was told. Cottle said the analysis, when it came back from the Centre for Forensic Sciences, identified the drug as fentanyl — cheaper to produce than heroin, considerably more potent, easier to smuggle and ultimately more profitable for its sellers and more dangerous for its users.

Silver added that it was wasn’t just fentanyl, however. It was fentanyl and caffeine.

Korenstein was released on bail on Dec. 19, but with a curfew that required him to remain in his residence between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m.

Assistant Crown attorney John Skoropada told the judge the 25-year-old was caught violating less than a month later, in mid-January. A Kingston Police patrol constable spotted Korenstein walking west on Princess Street at 4:20 a.m., pulled over to talk to him and then arrested him in the area of Helen Street and Franklin Place, behind Cloverleaf Lanes.

Silver told the judge the breach was committed on Korenstein’s birthday, but he also disclosed that his client has six prior convictions for violating court orders. Consequently, Silver said he was joining with Crown prosecutor Skoropada in recommending 30 days for his client’s latest breach.

He opposed the additional 90 days sought by the federal Crown, however, based on his client’s lack of prior convictions under the Controlled Drugs and Substance Act.

Korenstein didn’t have enough pretrial custody to absorb the full 120-day sentence advocated by the federal Crown prosecutor.

Cottle justified the additional time, pointing out that fentanyl, unlike heroin, not only puts the user at risk, “but anyone else who comes into contact with it.”

She pointed out, as well, that Korenstein chose to use the dangerous drug in the washroom of a downtown restaurant, mid-day on a weekend when families with children could potentially have been exposed to residue from his drug use. And she suggested to the judge that, as a drug user, he must be aware of the widespread adulteration of street drugs with fentanyl and the risk that poses.

Silver, however, suggested the risk was accidental.

“He thought he was shooting heroin,” the defence lawyer told Justice Marsh. “He was shocked when I told him what it was.”

Silver insisted his client “didn’t set out to obtain fentanyl. He could have killed himself.”

Korenstein echoed his lawyer’s comments, telling the judge he didn’t know he’d been sold fentanyl and he said, “I am seeking help.”